Friday, February 22, 2013

The Cat’s Meow

-A human introduction to feline behavior by Matteo A. Vaiente

During many of my long, treacherous nights in graduate
school while oscillating between hopelessness and despair, my feline companion
Fig offered to me much needed companionship. During the darkest hours of these
long nights, I began to take notice of his behavior and wondered what exactly
he was thinking or trying to tell me he would meow, purr, or, most often,
forcefully butt me with his head…Fascinated by the idea that Fig was perhaps
trying to communicate to me, I decided to do a little research and to share
with interested readers, cat-lovers, and biologists some of the current
scientific research that is attempting to characterize some peculiar cat
behaviors.

Interestingly cats, or for scientific purposes the
family Felidae, are typically asocial creatures with domesticated cats being
one of the few gregarious exceptions along with tigers, lions and a few others.
However solitary, there is still a biological imperative for these organisms to
communicate and procreate. One of the ways that cats communicate is through
olfactory marking, a behavior that has been well established. Common methods of
marking include using feces and urine (an effluvium which some cat owners may
have had the pleasure of dealing with, as I have).One of the most lovable,
albeit striking, things about Fig is that he LOVES to head butt and rub his
cheeks on nearly everything, and everyone. This behavior is thought to act in
the same was as other olfactory marking mechanisms in felines, as a way to
leave behind and detect scents from other individuals in the population.

Researchers have recently discovered that large wild
cats respond positively to cardboard that has been rubbed on the forehead or
cheek of another individual within the same species and were interested in
characterizing the chemical scents left behind after head and cheek rubbing
behaviors. Of the many volatile chemicals they found, tigers showed the highest
proportion of a chemical 2-pentadecanone compared to other species. Also,
medium chain linear carboxylic acids were found in higher proportions in tigers
and lions compared to cougars and leopards1.

These results are exciting because they suggest that
the array of chemicals released from the faces of felines display potential
functions for communication, potentially even with each species evolving its
own unique scent based language, as species specific mixtures appear to exist.
From the study on wild cats, 100 chemicals with matches to previously published
spectrum were identified using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)
approach (for the non-technical crowd, that’s just a sophisticated way to
separate and weigh a mixture of things on a chemical level.) and even some
novel compounds1. While this research is
brand new, it offers an interesting opportunity to understand how animals can
use complex olfactory signals to communicate with one another in a coordinated
way.

As many cat owners (or any pet owner, really) will
attest to, each and every pet seems to have its own personality. I certainly
believe that my little fig has a quite distinct personality, which I believe
distinguishes his from other cats. He is extremely gregarious, and has no
problem approaching strangers, offering them affection and unlike any cat I
have seen. Whether this is an artifactual association used to reconcile the
intense feelings of companionship and love that pet owners have toward their
furry little friends or truly individual variation in behavioral patterns due
to either nature or nurture has recently been examined by animal behaviorists2.

In this study, kittens from 9 different litters were
examined born of 9 different mothers were examined. The cats were followed for
a period of 2 years, and were observed for 5 minutes after feeding at ages 4,
12, and 24 months. During this time, behavioral patterns were observed and were
grouped into categories. These categories included: staying inside, rubbing and
investigative. Of particular interest,
rubbing behaviors increased with age in all litters, but were distinctly
clustered within litters; or kittens in the same litter were more likely to
have similar frequencies of rubbing behaviors. This is suggested to function as
a way for cats to receive tactile stimulation and to communicate with others and
their owners in a tactile way, and interestingly these behaviors were the most
common among kittens with the least amount of human handling at < 3 months
of age, indicating this may be a mechanism to elicit more human contact during
infancy2.

I did not know much about fig’s life before I luckily
met him my first weekend after beginning graduate school, but his behavior
seems to suggest that he and his littermates were predisposed (perhaps
genetically, as speculated within the study) to tactile stimulation and that he
was not handled by humans often during his formative years. When examined with the experimental results
above, there may be implications in also recognizing litter mates, as they may
be more likely to have similar chemical compositions of secretions for their
scent glands. While rubbing behavior has also been described and linked to
detect olfactory secretions from other members of Felidae. These results are
exciting since they seem to suggest that individual cats have distinct
behaviors, and the frequency of a cat’s behaviors may be influenced not only be
genetic factors but also by how they were nurtured and socialized as kittens.

Further corroboration that the chemicals released from
the facial area of cats are used in informing cat behavioral traits associated
with marking behavior (in this case urine) was presented in 2010 by Pachel in
the Journal of American Veterinary Association3. A case study was presented of
an otherwise normal male cat that began episodic urination on surfaces in its
home in response to some undefined stimulus. A therapeutic treatment using a
synthetic feline facial pheromone was effective in reducing the inappropriate
behavior3,4.

As far as Fig goes, sometimes he is not always lovingly
spreading his cornucopia of chemicals on the tables, chairs, books and
backpacks that clutter my 1930’s built apartment; and he has become quite used
to being handled and consistently demands this attention with a cacophony of
howls and meows that he often accompanies nightfall. But during those dark
hours of the night, when I’m still awake from his incessant pestering, I’m glad
he’s at least remembering not to pee on me.